8. Buses and Coaches
Mention of East Kent buses reminds me that a major morning ceremony consisted of herding those of us who “went out” to school to the Mersham Turning bus stop. At least two staff members came to make sure we really got there whereas it was not considered necessary to meet us on the return journey. The school bus was mainly for Caldecott people, though a few children from Mersham and Smeeth would already be on it. There was a strict protocol on the bus. The rear seats were for the “big boys” and “big girls”. I cannot speak for the big girls, but the big boys had twenty minutes or so to lord it over the little ones, applying arbitrary corporal punishment for alleged misdemeanours. Most of them also made it a point of honour never to smoke fewer than two cigarettes during the journey. Another protocol was that, initially, the boys sat downstairs and the girls sat upstairs. There was some ancient idea of chivalry behind this. The problem was that, at least in my years, there were more boys than girls, whereas there were more seats upstairs than downstairs. With the result that the boys were sometimes crammed three to a seat when there were empty spaces upstairs. A few officious conductors had the “extra” boys go upstairs with the girls, a solution not much appreciated by either side. Eventually it was decided to put logistics before gentlemanly behaviour and seat the boys upstairs and the girls downstairs. There was a conductor on board whose one specific duty was to count us. For the rest, most of them kept well clear of any arguments. Periodically, one would make a scene or report bad behaviour to the East Kent authorities. On one occasion, this resulted in a certain Mr. Kirbie, an East Kent bus inspector, visiting the respective headmasters of the North Modern and Ashford Grammar boys’ schools. The former gave him more satisfaction. He called the Caldecott boys into his office and read them the riot act, after which things continued as before. The head of the Boys’ Grammar, E. T. Mortimore, was a man of greater intellectual fibre. He called us into his office and attempted to chair a sort of court of inquiry. After hearing Mr. Kirbie’s version, he asked us what we had to say for ourselves, whereupon the future lawyer Gerald Moran opined that this was “a whole load of paraphernalia about nothing”. Mr. Mortimore, taking Mr. Kirbie’s part, tried to push us into a confession of wrongdoing, culminating in a good dressing-down, but, all things considered, Mr. Kirbie came out of it rather bruised.
If you missed the bus in the morning, there was not much you could do except walk or hitch a lift. If you set out walking, you would quite likely be picked up within a few minutes by one of the several teachers who drove to school along the A20, or by one of your schoolmates who had parental transport. Missing the bus back was less of a problem. You simply went to the school office and asked the secretary for a late pass. There was a no. 10 bus that followed not long after our school bus, so I developed the habit of deliberately missing the latter, since the regular bus service seemed so much more civilized. Sitting quietly on a half-empty bus, I could get a fair bit of homework done. Caldecott children had a bad reputation with East Kent or Maidstone and District bus conductors. Once, as we approached Mersham Turning, a Caldecott girl, Veronica “Vera” Studely, descended from the upper floor. The conductor evidently had not appreciated that I was Caldecott too, since he saw me looking at Vera and said, “Don’t look at that girl, son, she’ll lead you astray”. What on earth had poor Vera done to him? She seemed a perfectly normal, nice girl to me.
At the beginning and end of each term, Caldecott hired two coaches, one for the boys and one for the girls, to take us to and from Victoria Coach Station, where we would be met by our parents or by whatever escort had been provided. It was a matter of life or death to the younger passengers that their coach should be the first to arrive. Some of the drivers entered into the spirit of the thing and managed a nifty piece of overtaking, at traffic lights for example. Mr. King was invariably in charge of the boys’ coach. Betty Rayment travelled with the girls, an arrangement that fitted in with her train to and from Nottingham.